Tuesday 01/08 A.M. Quickie:LSU Champs, Ohio State Chumps, More!

LSU clubs OhioState, wins the national title: Another year, another dominating performance by an SEC champ over the Buckeyes.

There was a stretch, from Wells' early 65-yard TD run to about the mid-3rd quarter when OSU didn't seem to have a notable productive gain. The consecutive unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties must have drove OSU fans insane.

Credit LSU's defense, which seemed to take offense that OSU laid any claim to being the "No. 1 defense in college football."

But LSU QB Matt Flynn's 4 TD passes: Wow. For a steady but hardly spectacular QB, it was the game of a lifetime. And I think RB Jacob Hester answered any questions about his ability to gain tough yards in the NFL. It seemed like he owned every 3rd-and-short

It was a huge win for Les Miles, a huge win for LSU fans who enjoyed a title won in-state and a huge loss (again) for Ohio State and its fans.

What next for the BCS? There will be lots of discussion to install a "Plus-One" where they seed 4 teams into two "semifinals."

It remains to be seen whether the Big Ten and Pac-10 will play along (as I've argued, call their bluff and set up a coalition without them).

But consider the 4 teams you would have picked this year: LSU, Ohio State, VA Tech and Oklahoma. After the bowls, 3 of those choices look ludicrous.

And the Daily Quickie Readers Bowl Pick 'Em Group Champ is... Dan Shanoff. Yes, for the first time in my life, I won a fantasy- or pick-em-related competition. Wow.

Breaking: Joe Gibbs retires. I'm not sure how I feel about his "comeback." He seemed awfully out of touch, although he did get the team to the playoffs this year. The big question: Who's the next head coach? You know Dan Snyder wants a big splash: Cowher? Carroll?

Clemens Saga, Cont'd: The defamation lawsuit against Brian McNamee has been filed. (Why wasn't the suit filed against George Mitchell, too?)

Roger Clemens is the new Linda Tripp: Clemens produced a 17-minute tape of a phone call he had with Brian McNamee. Yes, it was as boring as your own 17-minute phone calls.

When Clemens was asked if players who used PEDs were cheaters, he refused to give a clear answer. What about "Yes?"

Clemens came across less defiant than just plain angry (as pointed out by Postman E on Fanhouse). Won't win him any fans.

Clemens seems to be suggesting that McNamee lied in the face of intimidation by the Feds; that's a dangerous claim to make.

Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2008 announced today: I think Gossage gets in and Rice doesn't (and Raines SHOULD, but won't).

CFB Coaching Carousel: June Jones to SMU to resurrect the long-dormant program. Have you ever seen more media around a non-BCS coach moving to a non-BCS school?

(I think he's going to do really well at SMU. He can apply his pass-happy system to Texas recruits; what QB wouldn't want to play for him?)

NFL: Is Joe Gibbs not coming back to the Redskins next year? Would that put Bill Cowher's return to the NFL on an accelerated timetable?

NFL Awards: Bob Sanders wins Defensive Player of the Year. Pretty amazing that the strength of the Colts has gone from the QB to the DB.

Brady, Cont'd: Neglected Tom Brady winning MVP, but that one voter who voted for Favre should lose his voting privileges, let's be honest You have beaten me down, my Commenting friends. Favre was a fair MVP pick -- Moss, too.

NBA: Inspired Warriors beat the defending champs. On any given night, is there a team more capable of beating anyone than the Warriors?

19 comments:

I can't believe that you would say that voter should lose his privileges for not voting Brady as MVP. If the Pats lose Brady, they still win a ton of games. If the Packers lose Favre, they lose tons of games.

How can you say this after you trumpeted LeBron the whiner last year as NBA MVP? Your whole reason for voting him as MVP was his team would be horrible without him. Just would like some consistency.

I sure hope he went out when he wanted to and wasn't being pushed out for another option (ESPN seems to think Carroll is the favorite). Gibbs wasn't great in his return, but I think he was good enough to pick his own exit.

Re: OSU

I wonder how good they will have to be to get picked for the National Championship game again next year. As in, how many records are they going to have to break? Starting to look like the Washington Generals here.

Yes, let's be honest. Tom Brady threw 24 TD passes last year. This year he got Randy Moss and threw 50. Who's more valuable? Favre is more valuable to his team than Brady, but Moss was the Most Valuable Player.

Congrats LSU and congrats Dan on winning the contest. Hopefully, my Dawgs can win it all next year and make it 3 in a row for the SEC.

Pretty impressive numbers now:

There has been 10 BCS Title games. The SEC has won 4 of them.

5 SEC head coaches have National Titles.

The big news to me today is over at the ajc.com sports section (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) website. The President of UGA, Michael Adams, in his current capacity as chairman of the NCAA executive committee, has sent a letter to NCAA president Myles Brand calling for an eight team playoff controlled by the NCAA (the NCAA has nothing to do with the BCS). He thinks the messy BCS this year has changed a lot of presidents' minds, and if he can wrangle enough of them, they could do an end-around on the bowls, conferences, and networks. Man, I hope he can pull it off. Check the story for more details (i.e. using the current BCS bowls as quarterfinal game sites).

I actually think you could have made the case for Randy Moss winning the league MVP. A voter shouldn't lose his credentials because he voted for Favre. You could credit Favre for the surprising success of Green Bay. Actually, the team that won far more games than anyone suspected this year is easily Green Bay. Doesn't mean I think Favre is MVP but have to let voters vote for who they want.

Lose his voting rights because he voted for Favre? I know Dan seems to usually be pretty negative toward Brett, but this seems a little extreme, don't you think? I can see some justification for the vote myself; the Patriots picked up some Pro-Bowl talent in the offseason while the Packers were predicted to go through another year of the rebuilding plan. Not only that, but Brady's record-breaking year came with a receiving record for Moss, and Belicheck winning coach of the year...seems as though terrific as he is, Tom may not be as valuable to NE as Brett is to Green Bay. At the very least, I don't think it would be unreasonable to at least give that opinion the benefit of the doubt. It's not like the guy voted for Joey Harrington...

Would the Redskins really hire another college coach? Especially so soon after Spurrier nearly destroyed the program. I'd say Cowher is far more likely (and a better choice) since one of the reasons he left the Steelers was over money; the Redskins can afford to pay him whatever he wants.

1. Pv is sort of right but sort of wrong. While that is true for that one particular season of Hoops it isnt anything like this year in the NFL. Different times. Brady is so far and away better it hurts.

2. Joe Gibbs shouldnt have come back. With Snyder and the current state of the game who would even want to?

3. Running OSU you there as the number one in the country team was a joke. I wont concede that the SEC is far and away the best (the last two championships have come out against weak big ten teams) but I can see how any fair evaluation of the current system would create disatisfaction. No one would be happy. Enough of that. THE BCS makes lots of money for everyone involved and until people admit that nothing can begin to change. We have to convince them there is more money in the long run if people love the College Football. I dont know how to do that but I can think about it some more.

Someone should check Favre's contract to see if he has a Schilling-like clause that says he gets a bonus for getting at least one MVP vote. It's a conspiracy theory!!!

Hopefully this time around Snyder will hire the best coach for his team and not just the biggest name available. Who are we kidding though? I'd love to know how much Snyder would be willing to pay Belichick to run the Redskins if he were on the open market. $15-20 million per? More?

The case for Brett Favre: You take an 8-8 team, lose a pro bowl running back, gain 2 or 3 rookies, and get a 13-3 team. Either those rookies should be in the pro bowl, or Favre improved his game by 5 wins.

I'm not saying Brady didn't have an outstanding season. What I am saying, Danny boy, is that you are the irresponsible journalist here.

Last year's UF title was not against a weak Big 10 team. That OSU team was legit, but got waxed.

This year's team wasn't nearly as good (and ironically, wasn't beaten nearly as badly), but good luck trying to match 2-loss teams in the finals, and keep out 1-loss teams because they lost the year before.

June Jones will do decently, but putting him at SMU makes him at best the 6th best program in Texas1) UT2) Texas Tech (Leach's offense is getting players from all across the country now)3) A&M, it takes a special breed of kid to still want to go there4) TCU- Patterson is a staple there, they pick up almost all of the "also-ran" recruits5) Baylor- BCS Conference, proven winner in Briles(UTEP and Houston are still better than SMU, i'm just taking into account the "bounce" the Jones hiring gives them)

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DanShanoff.com is a sports-blog spin-off of my long-time ESPN.com column, "The Daily Quickie." Anchored by an early-morning post of must-know topics, the blog is updated frequently throughout the day with new posts and user comments.